


Of Adders and Bluebells

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post-Inception
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 02:25:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/780694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this inception_kink prompt, "I don't understand what you're doing here." "Yeah, it happens. So have you heard of something called inception?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Adders and Bluebells

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Don’t sue me. I have nothing but my computer and a slightly used banjo.  
> Notes: Set post-Inception by two-ish years.

Nash wakes up in his skeevy motel room—the latest of many—dehydrated and epically hung-the-fuck-over.  
  
“Fuckin’  _tequila_ ,” he mumbles into the dirty pillow he’s currently laying face-down in, and rolls onto his side. When the late morning sun stops killing his eyes quite so much, he squints them open and gasps, which does nothing for the epicness of his hangover.  
  
“H-how’d you find me?” he croaks through a mouth stuffed with cotton and despite a tongue that feels like old, dirty carpeting. The immaculately suited man sitting in the motel room’s only chair smiles absently and taps his foot on the floor to some beat only he can hear.  
  
“You weren’t exactly doing much to cover your tracks, were you?” he asks, seeming amused, and very much at Nash’s expense.  
  
(Normally that’d make Nash angry, but then, Robert Fischer’s been laughing at him since the day they met, and since that day, Nash has been helplessly caught up in the other man’s strange orbit. Too caught up to mind being laughed at so long as he had Robert’s undivided attention.)  
  
“So. Tell me why you ran from me.” Robert’s eyes finally tick to Nash’s, big, and impossibly  _blue_. Nash looks away, ignoring the way his heart-rate increases. He’s gotten quite used to the feeling, when Robert is around.  
  
“Maybe I just didn’t wanna be a drone for COBOL anymore,” Nash lies, and he can all but hear that absent smile widen.  
  
“As distressing as it is to have my head of Corporate Security go haring off for parts unknown . . . you know that’s not what I meant, Alex.”  
  
Nash shivers, and sits up—slowly, in deference to his hangover—and swings his legs over the side of the bed. The room revolves nauseatingly for a minute, and Nash wonders idly if he’s going to throw up. And if he dares to aim for Robert’s shoes.  
  
Then his stomach settles some, and he risks a glance at Robert. Those blue-blue eyes are still on him, studying him, cataloguing him. Filing him away for further consideration.   
  
“Why’d you leave  _me_?”  
  
Nash sighs, leaning forward a bit, balancing his weight on his arms so as to avoid his feet touching the filthy carpet. “What does it matter? It’s not like I can’t be replaced. At COBOL or in your bed.”  
  
Robert genteelly nods his agreement, but there’s a flicker in his eyes that Nash can’t read. “However neither I, nor COBOL, for that matter, were done with you, yet.”  
  
“Well, maybe I just got tired of it, huh? Tired of your fucking company and tired of fucking  _you_.”  
  
That flicker makes another appearance then Robert snorts, as if too polite to call Nash a liar. “Alex, COBOL and I were the best things to ever happen to you. So I don't understand what you're doing  _here_."  
  
"Yeah, it happens,” Nash grunts, watching Robert uncross and re-cross his legs: the closest he ever comes to fidgeting. “So . . . have you heard of something called Inception?"  
  
It just comes out. Nash hadn’t meant it to.  _Ever_. But with his defenses down and the hangover drilling his skull to bits—and Robert’s hooded, yet innocent eyes watching him, waiting patiently on him for an explanation. . . .  
  
He doesn’t know whether he’s hoping Robert says yes or no. Can’t imagine which answer would be more catastrophic.  
  
“Of course I have,” Robert dismisses, waving his hand a little, and Nash’s heart begins to race, once more. “It means ‘origin,’ or ‘beginning.’ As in I’m beginning to grow impatient, and would like an answer to my question, Alex.”  
  
Nash closes his eyes, relieved and tense in equal measures. It’s a feeling that’s been driving him crazy for months. The feeling that’d eventually driven him out of his warm, comfy life, with his warm, comfy lunatic. “Can’t you just accept that it’s over? Me and COBOL, me and you . . . just . . . over.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Nash sighs. “No, of course not. Not Robert-fucking-Fischer, control-freak, extraordinaire, no sir—“  
  
Suddenly, hands are shoving Nash back down on the bed and pinning him. Long, lean, surprisingly  _strong_  legs straddle his own, and he’s looking up into Robert’s eyes. They’re wide and angry, and more than a little mad. When he kisses Nash it’s biting and cruel, all clashing teeth and warring tongues.  
  
“You taste disgusting.” he says with disdain, but keeps kissing Nash, anyway. Nash moans and puts his hands on Robert’s ass, pulling down as he bucks up, starting, against all reason, to get hard.  
  
It’s always been this way between them, despite the discrepancy in their respective stations: Robert the pursuer, Robert the aggressor—even Robert the suitor, when the weird, intense hate-fucking that’s characterized their interractions from nearly day one turned into something calmer, yet no less intense.  
  
And Nash, who’s been accused of thinking with his cock before, has been helpless to resist. Mostly because even if he  _could_  resist, he wouldn’t.  
  
 _Who would?_  Nash thinks as Robert bites his earlobe hard enough to momentarily throw the hangover into the background of Nash’s awareness.  _He’s gorgeous and spectacular in bed . . . he’s also crazy as a shithouse rat, but then I never did like the stable ones._  
  
Which makes Nash reflect almost fondly on his brief, doomed whatever-the-hell-it-was with Arthur Fielding.  
  
Robert bites his earlobe again hard enough to break skin and Nash swears.  
  
“Your attention was wandering, Alexander.” Robert whispers reprovingly, laving the bite for a moment. Then he’s snaking a hand between their bodies and fondling Nash through his wrinkled Dockers. Nash groans and slides his hands up Robert’s narrow back till his fingers are twining in Robert’s perfect hair. He tugs  _hard_ , so that Robert looks at him, all lazily hooded eyes and swollen lips.  
  
Robert smiles, and even his teeth are fucking perfect.  
  
“You’re out of your fucking mind— _literally_  out of your goddamn fucking mind,” Nash pants, his eyes falling shut as Robert pulls his head free—leaving behind some of that perfect hair—and leans down to kiss Nash again.  
  
“Maybe. But what’s between us—“ Robert squeezes Nash through his trousers until Nash is near mindless with needing to feel Robert’s hand on his skin. “—isn’t over. It’ll  _never_  be over.”  
  
Nash takes a deep breath, ignoring the familiar scent of Robert's clean skin and expensive cologne. “You’re hot. I like to fuck hot guys. End of story. That doesn’t mean I like  _you_ , babe.”  
  
Robert sits up just enough to smile that lazy smile at Nash, as if Nash has amused him once more. “Sweetheart, what’s  _like_  got to do with  _us_?” He laughs, truly delighted, and actually sprawls on top of Robert, handjob forgotten for cuddling. He sighs when Nash’s arms wind around him, and somehow makes himself even smaller than he already is. “I don’t like you, either. You’re a coward and a weasel. You’d sell your own mother for a bottle of substandard cognac.  
  
“You’re arrogant and crass, selfish and socially clumsy . . . none of which changes the fact that you’re also  _mine_.”  
  
Nash snorts again, letting his fingers bite into Robert’s ass once more, hoping like hell he leaves bruises. Physical ones to match the emotional ones Robert imparts so casually. “Gee, babe, I love you, too.”  
  
“I know you do.” Robert purrs, his head tucked under Nash’s, his hand tapping out that beat over Nash’s heart like a perfect counterpoint. He kisses Nash’s neck lingeringly. “And that’s why you’ll come home to Sydney with me. And you’ll never leave me again.”  
  
Nash tries to shove Robert away, but the man clings like a leech, his teeth gaining purchase in Nash’s neck, and they don’t let go until, with a bright flash of pain, Nash knows they’ve gone beyond hickey, beyond broken skin, and straight to torn, bleeding flesh. “ _Never. Again._ ”  
  
“ _The fuck!_ ” Nash yells, shocked into ceasing his struggles for a moment. At least until Robert starts drawing on the wound—actually  _sucking Nash’s blood_  like a goddamned vampire. “You fucking  _freak_!”  
  
Robert leans up to smile at Nash . . . with Nash’s blood in those perfect teeth and smeared on those perfect lips. It’s disturbing. Horrifying, . . . and hot, too.  
  
As if reading his mind, Robert starts fondling him again, slow and sure, still smiling that grisly-sexy smile. “You’re mine. I know what you want and what you need. I love giving it to you and you  _love_  that I love it. So why-ever did you leave me?”  
  
Nash rolls them over so he’s pinning Robert with the weight of his body, now. “Get it through your thick, pretty skull: we’re  _over_.” He squeezes Robert's delicate wrists as punctuation.  
  
Robert shakes his head, still smiling. “Never, love.”  
  
“You—“ Nash hangs his head for a moment, hating Robert even more than he hates Cobb, or Arthur—or even himself. “I could kill you right now.”  
  
Robert puts on a terrified, innocent face, eerily sincere. “Pwease don’t hurt me, Mr. Bad Man. I’ll do anything you want.  _Anything_. . . .”  
  
Before Robert can say anything else, Nash’s hands lock tight around his neck. Robert’s pulse is steady and strong under his hands. “Shut. Up.”  
  
Robert smiles and blows him a bloody kiss, his eyes sparkling and bright.  
  
“ _I love you_ ,” he mouths at Nash, his eyes fluttering shut, that grisly-sexy smile turning sweet and serene even as his pulse grows thready and weaker. Even as his face grows redder.  
  
He looks like a dying, demented angel, and Nash . . . Nash’s hands fall away from his throat. Without consciously deciding to, he’s kissing Robert’s bloody lips, tasting mint and copper in dizzying confusion as Robert pants desperately for more air, more kisses.  
  
Crazy-strong arms wind around Nash again, Robert’s body gone pliant and yearning under his. For a few minutes there’s only the passionate rediscovery of Robert’s kisses, and the way Robert’s legs bracket his thighs . . . Robert’s heels digging into his back.  
  
“Was there anyone else?”  
  
Nash doesn’t even have to ask what Robert means. They’ve never had communication problems—they know each other’s ways so well, it’s scary.  
  
“Dozens of whores and sluts. All of ‘em better lays than you.”  
  
“No one for me, either.” Robert chuckles, looking into Nash’s eyes with almost psychic certainty. It makes Nash wonder why he bothers to lie to Robert. “See? You’re irreplaceable. That should make you happy. It should make you want to stay with me.”  
  
“I can’t! Jesus, don’t you fucking get it? I.  _Can’t_!” Nash pushes himself off of Robert, and Robert lets him, still beaming at him. He looks mussed up and turned on, just the way Nash likes him.  
  
And that’s part of why Nash’d had to get out before things between them got any . . . deeper. Because really—how much of this—the sex, the fighting, the togetherness, the way Robert  _looks at him_ —how much of that is Robert, and how much is the Inception?  
  
The same Inception that not only caused Robert to mostly destroy his still relatively vast fortune, but also caused Robert to slowly, but steadily slip random cogs.   
  
“Actually, I  _don’t_  get it, Alex.” Still that adoring look, and God, but it makes Nash, of all people, feel  _guilty_. “You leaving is the one thing about you I don’t get, and . . . I need you to explain it.”  
  
Nash stands up, never mind the dirty-ass carpet. His shoes are nowhere to be seen, though he nearly trips over Robert’s. “I can’t explain it. I just—I got itchy feet, and left. You yourself said I’m a coward and a weasel. I just did what cowards and weasels do.”  
  
“No, what you’re doing  _now_  is what cowards and weasels do.” Robert sits up on his elbows and watches Nash pace. He’s still hard and mussy, vaguely obscene-looking in his slightly askew, yet still immaculate suit. “Be brave for once in your life and tell me why you ran away from me.”  
  
Nash stops pacing and pinches the bridge of his nose, taking another moment to hate his former associates for pulling off the impossible. To hate the hangover that’s making itself known once more. To hate everything and everyone, but especially, oh,  _especially_  Cobb and Arthur. “I can’t, babe. I just . . .  _can’t_.”  
  
“Alright.” Robert stands up gracefully—like he does everything, and  _God_ , but just watching him move goes straight to Nash’s cock—and links his hands behind him, like a schoolboy reciting a lesson. “How about I make it easier for you: does this have anything to do with dream-sharing, and a man who goes by the name of ‘Mr. Charles’?”  
  
That’s Cobb’s favorite alias.  
  
It’s also when Nash knows for certain that everything he’s suspected is actually true.  
  
When all Nash can do is stare and stare in utter shock, Robert smiles like the cat that got the cream. “Ah, so it  _does_.”  
  
Caught out, Nash nods feeling relief so powerful, it numbs him. And anxiety so great it threatens to swallow him whole. Had he once thought he had nothing to lose, in those distant, benighted days before the COBOL job?  
  
He sighs. “I’m sorry. I don’t know for sure what they did to you, but I have my guesses.”  _And it involves something that was supposed to be impossible._  
  
“So do I,” Robert says gently, but there’s a hint of something dark and cold in his voice. “I was brain-washed, wasn’t I? To break up my father’s company?”  
  
Nash nods again. “It’s called  _Inception_ , and it’s supposedly impossible. Even for the best Extractor, which Mr. Charles is. I don’t have proof, but that’s what I believe happened to you. And I think the man responsible in the first place—“  
  
“Is Jiro Saito?” Robert quirks an eyebrow nonchalantly.  
  
Completely thrown for a loop once more, Nash shakes his head, gaping and unable to help himself. He feels a sudden burst of something that may very well be love invade every available atom of his body. “How the hell do you know all this?”  
  
Robert smiles; there’s still blood in his teeth. “I didn’t. I merely suspected.”  
  
“But  _how_. . . ?”  
  
“For one thing, I dream lucidly.” Robert shrugs. “Even so, their only mistake was in trying to convince me my father loved me after all. Oh, I bought it for a while. For long enough to break up father’s leviathan of an empire.” His smile turns melancholy, and he crosses the motel room to put his arms around Nash. He looks up into Nash’s eyes and gives him an Eskimo kiss. “But something always felt off about the idea that he  _wasn’t_  disappointed in me. For awhile, I just hoped it was part of my. . . .” Robert touches his temple with two fingers that tremble only slightly.  
  
Frowning, Nash brushes Robert’s fingers off his temple and kisses it, kisses the two fingers, and holds Robert close. “I’m so sorry, babe.”  
  
“I’m not. Not particularly. Not about the company, anyway. And being crazy is kind of . . . freeing.” Robert dismisses airily. Then that cold, dark note is back in his voice. “I am, however, rather pissed off that I’ve been so thoroughly fucked over by someone I’ve never even met, let alone done anything to.”  
  
Nash opens his mouth to say—he doesn’t know what. So it’s a surprise when he hears himself ask: “So what do you want to do about it?”  
  
Surprised—for the first time in their relationship—Robert blinks up at him.  
  
“I want them dead,” he says simply. Then amends it. “No, I want them slowly, and  _very_  painfully dead.”  
  
Nash closes his eyes for a moment. Then he opens them, looking into Robert’s. The same cold, dark undertone that’d been in his voice moments ago is lurking in his eyes, like an adder in a field of bluebells.  
  
But it’s not directed at Nash, no. That adder is capable of biting anyone, absolutely  _anyone_  . . . except Nash.  
  
“You want company?” he asks, letting his own adder show for just a moment, and Robert inhales sharply.  
  
“Always,” he breathes, his pupils dilating till there’s only the thinnest ring of blue circling them. Nash kisses him hard, sliding his hands under Robert’s jacket and untucking his shirt.  
  
“We’ll discuss it in detail once we get to Sydney,” he promises, and Robert beams at him, the adder—both their adders—suddenly gone, hidden away for now.  _For now,_  there’s only  _Robert and Alex_ , kissing and hugging (Robert occasionally drawing  _hard_  on Nash’s wound), and dragging each other toward the bed.  
  
Sparing another very brief thought for his former associates—the last thought for the next long while—and the dark, creeping madness he sees mirrored in Robert’s eyes, Nash finds himself grinning. A  _lot_.  
  
Because his former associates?  
  
Are completely fucked.


End file.
